


The Live Long Enough Job

by StarlingGirl



Category: Leverage, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Crossover, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 21:56:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2827433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarlingGirl/pseuds/StarlingGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Leverage team know that a serum which can re-grow limbs and cure all sorts of disease must be a con. SHIELD are here to tell them otherwise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Live Long Enough Job

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ishilde](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=ishilde).



> As per usual, I bit off way more than I could chew.
> 
> To Jai, my dear Secret Santa, for whom this gift was conceived, I am so sorry. I had a great idea, but November was NaNoWriMo, and then Decemeber threw twelve hour shifts at me relentlessly, and this is neither as polished nor as well thought through as it should be. It also probably doesn't make much sense and I don't even remember how well it matches your prompts.
> 
> On the other hand, I DID get it finished, which was an unsure thing for a while, and I hope the sentiment makes up for its many deficiencies. By next Christmas I'll probably have managed to clean it up and actually find a plot in there somewhere, and maybe throw in a bonus art. Merry Christmas, my friend, and I hope that you at least get a little enjoyment from this :)

It feels like the conquering flames of Rome burning.

Every nerve-ending sings with the Pyrrhic victory of it, his cells dance and die and are reborn again. They’d told him he’d borrow a little invincibility from the gods. They didn’t tell him that he’d feel this drunk on it, that the universe would squeeze itself into the space behind his eyes, or that his fingers would feel galaxies away – a whole nebula between himself and his toes, so that moving seems to take light years, a whole new journey for mankind just to twitch his thumb.

Belatedly, he realises that he is on the floor, and wonders when the supernovas will cease burning up his lungs. He goes on wondering, until they collapse in on themselves, become impossible dense, become black holes that steal the oxygen from his blood and – at long last – peter out.

No earthbound man has ever died in such galactic splendour.

* * *

 

She doesn’t cry when she talks about her husband, and in some ways, Eliot always finds that worse.

He recognises the grief-tempered steel behind her eyes, the echoes of shock still heavy on her, and knows that she will not cry until this is all over and done with. It is the look of a soldier, of a woman at war, and she will not let herself be anything more until the battle is lost or won.

“He had Alzheimer’s,” she tells them, “early onset. He wasn’t that bad, not yet, but he knew that when his grandkids were old enough to remember his face, he probably wouldn’t know theirs.”

“And they offered him a cure,” Eliot says, and it’s not a question. People have been ruthlessly taking advantage of the mentally infirm for centuries, and she’s not here because her husband found a miracle that made him all better.

“They said it could regenerate cells, cure anything. They said it would keep him young, and healthier than he’d ever been. It sounded like nonsense, but there’s no other cure, and…”

Beside him, Parker shifts in her seat. She’s clearly got something to say about these guys, and it’s not kind. She’s gotten better at saving her outbursts for after their client has left.

“After Eddie – after, they told me that all the risks were outlined in the contract. I never saw that contract! They gave a sick man a contract and expected him to sign it then and there, Mr Spencer. A man who’s started to forget if he’s eaten already. They won’t admit that they’ve done anything _wrong._ ”

“They will,” Parker says, quietly fierce. “We’ll make sure of that. They won’t hurt any more people.”

The woman smiles at that, for the first time since she came in, and the lines on her face fall into place – as though she’s spent the last fifty years smiling, and her face has grown used to it.

“Thank you. I just can’t bear the idea of anyone else – well, people ought to know the risk they’re taking, at least.”

They watch her go. Hardison appears from behind the bar, draping himself into the chair that their newest client has just vacated.

“For real? Someone’s sellin’ a miracle immortality cure? That’s the oldest con in the book, man.”

“No one can live forever,” Parker agrees, “except in those picture-books Hardison reads.”

“Ay, they are called _comics._ Besides, even Wolverine dies eventually. Who’s even fallin’ for this?”

Eliot’s face is dark when he answers.

“People with no other hope.”

For a long second, there’s silence. They look between each other, and Parker nods, decisively. It was strange, at first, after Nate and Sophie left, but after the first few jobs they fell into a new sort of equilibrium.

“Hardison?”

“Yeah, yeah. Dig up the dirt. I’m on it. Eliot, man, watch the bar.”

“Watch your own damn bar, Hardison! I’m not your employee. Though you could do with a few more of those, by the way --”

“Well maybe if yo’ grumpy-ass lookin’ face didn’t keep scaring ‘em away, I’d keep some longer than a week --”

Hardison scampers when Eliot moves to stand from his seat, dancing out of the hitter’s reach and dashing through the door that’ll take him upstairs to his beloved monitors.

“Aw,” says Parker, happily. “He’s _still_ scared you’ll hit him.”

“It’s only a matter of time,” mutters Eliot, who wouldn’t hit Hardison if you paid him. Not that _he_ needs to know that.

* * *

 

“This is Dean Garner, founder and CEO of the Gilgamesh Corporation,” Hardison says, as the man’s face fills the screens in front of them – newspaper clippings, candids, slightly grainy security footage all with the same face staring back at them.

It’s a nondescript kind of face, the kind anyone would struggle to pick out from a crowd. Average height, average build, dark hair. Eyes brown, maybe green, and no distinguishing features.

“Claims to have invented his serum using his background in biochemistry and pharmaceuticals, and while the chemical makeup is a secret, it _has_ been FDA approved.”

“Great,” says Eliot. “So you can die an FDA approved death. Surely this drug isn’t safe?”

“That’s the thing,” Hardison says, and pushes a button on his remote. Dean Garner disappears, to be replaced by copies of several reports and patent documents. “Everything I found says that it _is._ Trial results an’ everything, all with a great big stamp of approval from like, three different government organisations.”

“Maybe we could all live forever,” Parker says. “Leverage superheroes. Eliot can be Batman.”

“Babe, Batman’s not – y’know what? Never mind. Anyway, I ain’t goin’ _near_ the stuff. When I did some more digging on Dean Garner – turns out he don’t even exist pre-2013. No school records, no driving license, no taxes. I ran his face through the DMV, and I can’t even find an alias or _nothing’._ ”

“The kind of guy who knows how to fake FDA approval, then,” Eliot muses.

“An’ do it damn well, if that’s the case.”

“Put the newspaper article back up,” Parker says, flapping a hand towards Hardison, who pulls the remote out of her reach before she can get hold of it. There’s a minute of _give me that – get off – look, I’m doing it!_ , and Eliot rolls his eyes. Sometimes, it’s more like babysitting than anything else.

The screens jump back to a dozen pictures of their mark, and then a newspaper article fills the screen.

“He’s set up three charities,” Parker points out as her eyes scan the article. “And an orphanage. I thought he was supposed to be a bad guy?”

Eliot points.

“Y’see that? ‘I don’t think anybody should call me a hero’? No one _did_ call him a hero.”

“Seems like he wants to be one pretty bad,” Hardison says, folding his arms across his chest. They’re all thinking the same thing. The first element in any good con is finding what the mark wants, and giving it to him.

“Let’s go steal an origin story,” Parker says, gleefully.

“Yeah – just one problem,” Hardison says, before she can slide out of her seat and strike a superman pose. The screen changes again, and Eliot and Parker’s faces fall. It’s a familiar face, and not a good one.

“He’s got Forman working his security?” Eliot demands. “He knows us. There’s no way we’re getting anywhere _near_ that guy, man!”

“We’re gonna need some help,” says Hardison, and suddenly all eyes are on Eliot. He holds out for a full five seconds before he hits the table, shoves his chair back in frustration.

“Why d’you always put this crap on me, man?”

“Don’t say it. Don’t you say --”

“ _Dammit_ , Hardison!”

“Oh, come _on._ Like any of this is _my fault._ ”

“Do you know how many people I owe favours to because of you?”

“Well owe one more, man!”

He points a finger at Hardison, frustration boiling over in his every movement. There’s a half-abortive sound from his mouth, and then he turns, and walks away, muttering under his breath all the damn while.

* * *

 

Last time Eliot found Quinn, he was in a warehouse in Chechnya.

This time, he’s in a tacky coffee-shop in Michigan, drinking a cup of grainy coffee-coloured water that Eliot’s desperate to knock out of his hand and replace with something that actually tastes good, or at least contains some caffeine. Then again, he probably got what he paid for.

“You know, you could just _call._ ”

Eliot’s not surprised that Quinn’s not surprised. He takes a seat opposite the hitter, tips his head with the hint of a smile.

“You don’t seem like a cell phone kinda guy.”

Quinn’s wry smile curls familiar at the corner of his lips, and he takes another mouthful of ‘coffee’ before he sets it down, pushes it away from himself across the table. He hasn’t changed – same curl of hair escaping from behind his ear, too short to be tied back; same suit, not tailored, loose enough to let him swing a punch with ease, and the same, barely-there arrogance lingering at his smirk.

“I need your help, man,” Eliot says. And Quinn’s eyebrow rises a fraction.

“Here I thought that _you_ owed _me_ a favour.”

“I’ll owe you another.”

There’s a pause. Quinn doesn’t seem inclined to agree, and Eliot knows that he hasn’t got much reason to. He knows how many jobs there are to choose from in this world. He knows how much quick money the man can make.

“People are dying,” he says, and Quinn tips his head.

“People are always dying.”

“They don’t deserve to.”

“They rarely do.”

Another silence, and before Eliot’s reduced to begging, Quinn breathes a half-laugh and leans back in his chair.

“Alright, Spencer. One condition.”

Eliot casts an apprehensive look at Quinn’s raised finger, shoots him a glance that asks the question without having to speak.

“Is that hacker involved?”

“Which one?”

“Either of them.”

Eliot laughs, and Quinn’s eyes are laughing too. This is just a show of bartering over price. Quinn knows he’s going to help, and he knows that Eliot knows, too.

“He grows on you.”

* * *

 

“ _Boyd?_ ” Quinn mutters as he pins on the badge that has been given him by the security desk. “I have a thousand aliases in place already and you insist on making me a new one under the name _Boyd?_ ”

Boyd Anderson is a consultant who specialises in security for private medical facilities working with sensitive materials. Or at least he would be, if he weren’t entirely fictional.

“You use those aliases to go around _killin’_ people,” Hardison says in his ear. “How far you think you’d get if you walked in and said hi, I’m Stabby McShooterson, can I meet yo’ boss?”

The head of security – the very same Andrew Forman who’d been the obstacle to Eliot or Parker or Hardison going in – has disappeared to validate Quinn’s swipe-card, which will allow him temporary access to the building’s most secure areas. Even though he’s not in the room, Quinn forces himself not to snap at the hacker, and wonders (not for the first time) how the hell Eliot has gone so long without _strangling_ the man.

“You can say it if you want, man,” Eliot says in his ear, and the other hitter has always been good at apparently reading his mind. But he keeps the words ‘dammit, Hardison’ caged behind his teeth, because saying it feels like admitting he’s part of this team, a member of this dysfunctional little family, and he’s not.

He doesn’t help people. He helps himself to a good paycheck.

“We do have top-of-the-range security here,” Forman says as he returns to the room, almost sullen at the idea that anyone might think otherwise.

“I don’t doubt it,” Quinn says, smoothly. “But like I said, we’ve received some very credible threats, and it’s my job to make sure that they can’t be carried out. You and I know that in a place like this, there’s no way anyone could get far. But the guys at the top who wouldn’t know a decent security system if it slapped them in the face…”

He lets the sentence trail off with a shrug, and is pleased to see Forman nodding along in bitter agreement. Quinn’s no grifter, but he’s learned a trick or two, and more often than not, his success lies in finding a common enemy with his mark.

In this case, the common enemy is probably the bigwigs, guys who give Forman orders which make no sense because they’ve never had to _run_ a security operation, and they don’t have the first idea what the hell they’re talking about.

“Just a formality,” Quinn says, with calculated casualness. “I don’t doubt with a man of your calibre in charge, I’ll be able to sign off the facility in no time at all.”

Forman puffs up his chest at that, and Quinn resists the urge to roll his eyes. This job would be ten times easier if he was allowed to leave a trail of bodies behind him, but Eliot had made it clear that on the job, no one died unless they had to.

If anyone else had said it, Quinn might have ignored them. But he respects Eliot, in the manner of an equal, and so, grudgingly, he listens.

“Well Mr. Anderson, let’s get this tour done,” Forman says, and Quinn struggles not to rip out his earpiece and crush it underfoot, just to avoid the inane voices he can’t escape.

_“It’s like that movie you made me watch. Does Quinn want the red pill, or the blue pill?”_

_“Dammit, Hardison! You gotta stop making stupid movie references in our aliases!”_

_“The Matrix ain’t stupid! It’s a god damn classic!”_

It’s going to be a really, really long job.

* * *

 

Five minutes into the tour, he’s beginning to think that he’s been going about his job the wrong way his entire life.

Every weakness, every minor flaw of the system is pointed out to him. Every access code is, every guard shift, the location of every camera. He could come back tomorrow and kill every man in the place, and leave no clue behind as to how he’d done it, a total ghost.

Fifteen minutes into the tour, he’s bored out of his mind.

He’s used to long periods of waiting. His employers don’t tend to give him much, except a name and a number with a very satisfying chain of zeroes at the end, and sometimes a mark won’t show up on time. He’s spent days, _weeks_ , just waiting to kill someone.

And so he retreats to a very particular place in his mind, the one where information filters in, but he’s pleasantly occupied in an almost zen-like blankness.

Of course, it’s generally easier to maintain without an earpiece in. Parker’s singing Christmas carols, badly, which is ridiculous because it’s _November_. Eliot and Hardison have plenty to say about that, but Quinn can’t quite shake the feeling that if he snapped at her the way they did, he’d be on the receiving end of some very harsh glares.

He really, really can’t work out what this team-slash-family _is_ , how it works. It fascinates him, even if he knows he could never be a part of it.

Eliot thinks otherwise, he knows. He’d asked Quinn to stay – just a few more jobs, a few more scores – but he’d flat-out refused. Eliot had talked about the life before Leverage – the same life that Quinn still lives – as if it were some distant corner of hell he’d managed to crawl his way out of.

Quinn has no desire to leave it. He’s good at killing people, and he enjoys it, in the same way as anyone enjoys something that they happen to very good at. He has money, for all he doesn’t _spend_ much of it. He lives in a series of anonymous apartments, wears cheap suits that will end up blood-stained and burned, and he doesn’t have family, or friends, or a team, or even many allies.

Eliot Spencer has a moral compass, even if it doesn’t always point due north. Quinn is pleasantly lost in the wilderness, and with no intention of making his way back to civilisation any time soon.

“ ---- the treatment area,” Forman says, and the words pull him from his attempted reverie. Even Parker falls silent.

They both scan their cards, and a guard double-checks their identities from behind bullet-proof glass. Two cameras. Motion sensors. It’s all explained to him in detail.

Once they’re through the doors – three of them, in total – it’s stark, white, and the smell of a hospital is sharp in the back of his throat. Ahead of him, two blue-clad orderlies guide an old man towards a room. He’s white-haired, milky-eyed, and he hobbles along slowly, painstakingly. If Quinn’s not very much mistaken, the man’s lost all sensation in at least one of his legs below the knee.

“Diabetic neuropathy,” Forman tells him, and doesn’t bother with a low voice. “Without us, he’d lose the leg, and he’s mostly blind already.”

“ _Wouldn’t be surprised if they stole his damn leg, too,_ ”Eliot mutters in Quinn’s ear. Privately, Quinn agrees. Whatever con they’re running here, it centres on the vulnerability of people who’ll die soon anyway. There’s nothing to be done to save them, and so Dean Garner has decided to rob them blind instead.

Well, rob them _blinder._

“And through here are our labs. They’re the most secure area in the facility…”

Quinn follows, and watches, does his best to work out just what the plan is going to be. Somehow, he just can’t see it unfolding without him hitting at least _one_ guy really hard in the face.

* * *

 

“I’ve got some minor concerns,” he tells Forman at Eliot’s prompting, to keep the man on edge and to give Quinn a reason to return. They’re retracing their steps, passing back through the corridor of treatment rooms. “I’ll just have to --”

He’s used to dealing with several threats at once without breaking stride, but not like _this,_ and his brain ceases to function as it tries to process the information at hand.

One: there’s a man in this tableau who doesn’t belong. He’s an interloper just as much as they are, and as such, he’s an unknown quantity. A threat.

Two: the old, hobbling man who half an hour ago had been blind and almost-lame is striding from his treatment room with clear, dark eyes and not a single hesitation in his step.

In truth, number one doesn’t bother him that much. It’s number two that has him speechless. Forman smiles, a smug smile laced with pride.

“Quite something, isn’t it? You can see the reasons for all our security.”

Quinn manages a noise that might sound like agreement, but is probably more like astonished disbelief.

“ _What’s he talking about?_ ” Parker is asking in his ear, and Eliot is asking too, voice urgent and low and demanding.

“How about that,” Quinn says, because at this point, it’s all he can manage.

* * *

 

“The damn serum _works?_ Are y’all _serious?_ The man _literally_ has a miracle cure?”

“A miracle cure that sometimes _kills people,_ ” Eliot reminds him, but he’s just as shaken as the rest of them by the information.

“He made a blind man see!” Hardison says, and if the pitch of his voice rises much more, he’ll be going supersonic. “Y’know who else did that? Jesus. This some bible-level shit goin’ on right here, an’ I don’t like it!”

“We’re in way over our head here,” Eliot says, with a glance towards Quinn, who’s remained silent in favour of letting the others do all the talking and/or panicking. He’s leaning against the wall, and if it weren’t for the way his eyes darted from Eliot, to Hardison, to Parker, and back to Eliot again, one might suppose he wasn’t even vaguely worried.

“I don’t care if he can pull rabbits out of top hats,” Parker protests, almost plaintive. “That nice lady’s husband still died because of him.”

Quinn watches carefully as the attention shifts to Parker, as though the two men have, for a moment, set their panic aside to deal with their thief. It’s interesting, how much these people have changed in just a few years.

Despite himself, he feels the same pull. Seeing Parker upset throws things off-balance. It’s like watching a puppy get kicked, and even as a man who kills people for a living, he’s never kicked a damn puppy.

“Look, Parker,” Eliot’s saying, “I know there’s bad things happening to good people, but without more information on whatever the hell’s goin’ on here, we got nothing. We need more.”

It’s easy to understand how Eliot Spencer had become the backbone of this little band of criminals. He’s done enough amoral things to know how far is too far, and what’s more, he cares about staying on the right side of that line, these days. For as long he’s here, Quinn intends to use him as a yardstick, which is why, when he speaks to Parker, his eyes are still on Spencer.

“So let’s ask someone.”

Eliot pauses, sends him a calculating look, and seems to understand him at once. It’s the shorthand of two men who have lived two very similar lives, where words aren’t often needed.

Hardison, on the other hand, loves his words.

“Oh, right just – we’re just gonna _ask._ Who exactly we gonna ask? Santa Clause? Have _you_ been a good boy this year? ‘Cause I don’t think I’m gon’ get the secret behind the _miracle of life_ in my stocking this year.”

Quinn’s gaze finally leaves Eliot’s face, and lands on Hardison’s with an unsettling not-quite-smile gathering at one corner of his lips.

“The archer,” he says, simply. As if nothing in the world could be any more obvious.

“The _what_ now?”

“The man I saw in the facility. He’s not who he’s pretending to be, and if there’s a second party trying to infiltrate Garner’s operation – well, maybe they know more than we do.”

There’s silence as it’s mulled over. It makes sense, and they know it does – but teaming up with an unknown quantity is just asking for trouble, and they know that too. Quinn has no such compunctions, and perhaps that’s what this team needs right now: someone who’s utterly prepared to disregard their playbook.

“Archer?” Hardison asks, belatedly. “I know we ain’t talkin’ some dude with a stick and string, ‘cause we’ in the twenty-first century, here.”

“It’s a very characteristic muscle build,” says Quinn, and raises an eyebrow in amusement as Parker and Hardison both make near-identical noises of mixed disbelief and frustration.

“Do all hitters have that superpower?” Parker asks, and Eliot shoots her a glare before he nods almost imperceptibly towards Quinn.

It’s as good as saying it out loud.

_Do it._

* * *

 

“Why do criminals never meet up in yoghurt bars, or record stores?” Parker asks as she hops from one foot to the other and pulls the hoodie she’s wearing – Hardison’s, by the look of it, but maybe Eliot’s – tighter around her body. “It’s so _cold_ in empty warehouses.”

No one bothers to provide an answer. Hardison’s busy monitoring the CCTV from his phone, nervous and a little twitchy.

Eliot and Quinn, on the other hand, would appear entirely relaxed to the casual observer. Quinn’s hands are deep in his pockets, and Eliot’s leaning against one of the hulking concrete uprights which towers up into the darkness to support the roof. They’re still and quiet, but there’s a tension to both of them that suggests they could go from stationary to killing a man in under two seconds.

“We got company,” Hardison says. “I hate to be a killjoy, but does anyone else remember almost getting blown up in a warehouse just like this one? Nobody? Just me?”

There’s the echoing sound of a door opening in the dimness, and the _tak-tak-tak_ of several pairs of footsteps rebounds from the bare walls and fills the shadows.

“Babe, you rememb--- Parker?”

She’s gone. None of them had quite noticed when she disappeared, nor indeed where she’d disappeared _to_ , and it’s honestly a little embarrassing that Hardison isn’t a little more attuned to it, by now.

“She’ll turn up,” Eliot mutters against the increasing volume of the approaching party. “Forget about it.”

Hardison squints into the darkness. Something about Eliot changes, ever so slightly – some air or tone about him shifts, just a little. Quinn notices, and abruptly there’s a notch more tension ratcheted into his spine. His hands, in his pockets, are loose facsimiles of the fists they so often make.

“There’s only two of ‘em,” Hardison hisses, somewhat unnecessarily. “Is that woman wearin’ a _catsuit_?”

Eliot’s eyes don’t leave the approaching figure for a single second.

“Don’t underestimate her,” he says. “She got promoted to black ops before most of her old unit knew which way round to hold a gun. Every agency worth a damn would give pretty much anything to have her.”

“How the hell do you know that?” Hardison mutters. “A very distinctive left nostril? Perhaps her left ring finger. Maybe you’re makin’ this shit up---”

“Hello, Spencer.”

Silence ripples out throughout the empty warehose, the woman’s words like a heavy stone dropped in still water.

“Because I worked black ops with her,” Eliot says. “Hello, Maria.”

Quinn, once again, takes his cues from Eliot.

Eliot, whose muscles are loose, entirely. Eliot, whose palms are open and shoulders relaxed. Eliot, who hasn’t taken a half-step in front of Hardison, despite the gun that’s clearly at the woman’s thigh. Quinn lets the anticipation of a fight escape, a sad, half-fulfilled taste of adrenaline draining from his tongue.

Eliot’s body says that they’re in the company of friends, and Quinn has learned to listen to it, the way he should have done so many years ago when Eliot’s body had radiated the sure knowledge that he could win this fight, and Quinn had been stupid enough to ignore it, and go in for another punch.

Hardison, on the other hand, still doesn’t seem to understand that shorthand. Maybe if Eliot communicated in binary, he’d be in the loop a little more, but as it is his gaze is darting between Eliot and the woman and her blonde companion, who’s slouched with his hands in his pockets.

“Parker,” Eliot says, in a warning sort of tone.

She steps from the shadows, half-sheepish.

“I don’t think he’s all that dangerous,” she says. “A man who carries around nothing but a protein bar and a photo of a _dog_ can’t be dangerous.”

The blonde man frowns, and reaches into his pocket, and then stares in outrage at the thief, who’s clutching said items in her hands.

“Hey,” he says, and just a touch of Eliot and Quinn’s tension returns in anticipation of a strong reaction. “I was saving that for later.”

* * *

 

“SHIELD kept all the Extremis samples we could recover, but mostly it was only samples from the blood of individuals who had been dosed with it. We’ve only got parts of the picture. Six months ago, one of our operatives went AWOL, along with some of those samples.”

They’re back in the bar, which Maria Hill had surveyed with one raised eyebrow, apparently a little surprised by Eliot Spencer’s base of operations.

The archer – Clint Barton, he’d been identified as – is sitting at the bar, doing his level best to retrieve the all-important protein bar from Parker, and drinking a glass of Hardison and Parker’s ‘thief juice’ which, against all logic or expectation, he seems to be quite enjoying.

Quinn is watching. He’s not watching any one of them in particular, although his eyes take on a note of confusion whenever they’re directed toward Clint, as though he can’t quite figure him out.

“So this serum – Extremis – it _works_?” Eliot asks.

Maria tips her head. She’s almost like Eliot remembers her, but there’s something sitting just beneath her skin that had never been there before. A theme on the same darkness that’s curled around Eliot’s spine, after some of the things he’s done.

“Sometimes.”

“Literally kill or cure, huh?”

“You’re just lucky it doesn’t make them breathe fire anymore.”

There’s a contemplative pause at that, filled only by the sound of Parker trying to guess the mystery dog’s name, staring hard at the photo in search of a clue.

“Some operation you’re running,” Eliot says.

Hardison had nearly wet himself when he’d figured out that Barton was one of the Avengers, that he’d been within two feet of his ultimate hero and man-crush, Tony Stark.  Even Quinn had been mildly impressed, though he’d only looked it for a moment or two.

“Always got room for another good agent,” she tells him, and her meaning is clear. They both already know the answer to the unasked question.

“I already got a job, ‘Ria.”

Her lips tighten at the nickname. Eliot guesses no one calls her much of anything except ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’ these days.

“I’m still not entirely sure what your job actually is,” she says, after a moment.

“We help the people that the system can’t,” Eliot says, and leaves it at that. Maria looks at Parker and Hardison, arguing with Clint; at Quinn, lurking in the half-shadows, and back to Eliot, his gaze unwavering.

“We need those samples back, Spencer. They’re potentially deadly. And we need Garner, too, if that’s what he’s calling himself these days. But I can’t afford mass panic or public outcry by letting them know exactly what he’s got, or what he’s capable of.”

Eliot smiles and shrugs a shoulder.

“Came to the right place,” he says. “Sometimes, bad guys make the best good guys.”

* * *

 

There's a television in the corner of Garner's office. The volume is low, half-muted, but there's still a discernible murmur as Quinn stands and waits and watches the man watch the screen, eyes narrowed. It's a news report, voicing the concerns of several government agencies over the continued aggression from the unknown terrorist cell which seems to have been responsible for a number of assassinations and large-scale acts of violence. The anchor is discussing how the heroes of the age - even Captain America, the nation's super-soldier - seem unable to deal with this threat.

Quinn stands passively. He's not interested in the nation. He's interested in doing the job he's getting paid to do.

Eventually, Garner pushes his chair back around so that he's facing Quinn across his desk, and leans forward with pursed lips and interlaced fingers.

"A mole, you say?"

"There's information leaving your company," Quinn says. "At first, I believed that it might be your chief of security -" in the corner, Forman chokes out a sputtered protest and is thoroughly ignored, " - but it seems that it's a very specific leakage. While we were testing your network security, we managed to intercept this."

He produced a thumb-drive, slides it across Garner's desk with a finger.

It had been laughably easy for Parker to break in after the facility's security had been laid so bare to Quinn, though he didn't doubt that she'd have managed it even without all that extra information. She'd cooed over the safe in Garner's office - some antique, apparently, beautifully strong and perfectly designed. He couldn't help thinking that it wasn't that perfectly designed if it took her less than two minutes to get into.

The thumb-drive is bits and pieces of information. Facility statistics. Parts of the serum's formula, as though the imaginary mole is putting the puzzle together, piece by piece. And here and there, sprinkled throughout, are names and project codes that Garner will be forced to recognise, because they're all his old handlers, his superiors, projects that he left behind when he'd abandoned SHIELD and taken parts of the Extremis research with him.

Maria Hill had frowned at his picture when they'd showed her, and it had been Quinn who'd pointed out that the man's face was symmetrical, distressingly so, that his cheeks were a little too shiny and that his jaw showed the tell-tale signs of having been shaved. He'd changed his entire face, just to go unnoticed, and it hadn't worked.

"I thought he was more intelligent than this," Maria had said, dryly. "Once he started handing out a serum based off of Extremis, it was only a matter of time before we took notice."

"He wants to save people, be adored," Eliot had told her. "Probably got sick of watching your little team get all the credit. But that's useful."

"How?"

"We're going to give him what he wants so he doesn't notice us taking everything else."

Now, his smooth brow is furrowed with concern and anger and a hint of fear as he scrolls further and further through the files that Hardison had pasted together. Whatever Quinn might think about the team as people, he had to admit that they were efficient, they worked well together. Not even a day after the entire situation had changed, they'd already moved seamlessly into plan B.

"Get out." Garner tells Forman, who looks mutinous at the idea of leaving Quinn alone with his boss, and makes no move towards the door. Quinn plays it just right. There's no smugness in his expression when he glances over at Gilgamesh's head of security, no indication that he's revelling in the man's dismissal. Instead, there's a serious expression there, a slight nod. He's allowing Forman the show of passing on the torch, rather than having it ripped from his hands.

The man shuts his mouth, and leaves, glancing back at Garner and Quinn only once as he closes the door.

"I need to know who this mole is," Garner says, and there's barely restrained rage under his words. "I need you to find them. If they get a hold of the serum, it could be -- catastrophic."

For you, thinks Quinn. For everyone else, the world would go on as it always had, and sure, a few people might be robbed of the chance of a cure for the incurable, but they'll also be saved from the chance of a death devoid of even the most basic kinds of dignity, or justice.

"From what I can see, the mole communicates with his contact on a schedule. I have no doubt that we'll catch him in the act, sir."

* * *

 

The whole building is dark. It's nearly three in the morning, and Quinn can taste the gritty sort of sourness at the back of his teeth that comes from not enough sleep and terrible coffee.

Garner is twitchy, and it's easy to see why.

All day, he's been bombarded subtly with the idea that America is under threat - a threat it cannot possibly hope to face. News reports on his television. Gossip in the cafeteria. His web browser had popped up a viral video from YouTube that appeared to show grainy footage of Captain America only just managing to fight off a single man, whose strength and agility had rivalled even the hero's own.

Hardison had been having far too much fun coming up with that one.

Further perusal of the thumb-drive Quinn had given him would also show hints that SHIELD needed the serum for something specific, for an operation to combat a new and rising threat.

Worry is working its way into Garner's blood, strengthened by the knowledge that SHIELD have tracked him down, are in the process of recovering just what was taken from them in the first place. Garner, or whatever his name really was, had worked for them long enough to know that he wouldn't simply be allowed to walk free if they had their way.

Quinn can't quite tell if he's putting the two together yet, but soon enough, he will.

Hardison's here, too, in a dull grey suit, tapping away at the keyboard and doing his best not to complain at Garner's complete and utter lack of personal space as he leans over his shoulder, peers impatiently at the screen, asks once every three or four minutes whether there's anything yet.

"Nothing," Hardison says, and his lack of patience finally breaks the surface. "Not since the last time you asked me, say, thirty-four seconds ago."

Garner spins away frustrated, and Quinn shoots Hardison a glare. Hardison pulls a face, shrugs a shoulder, indicates his frustration with the universal sign of throttling an invisible man with vigour. His hands drop the moment Garner turns back.

Then there's a burst of static, and Hardison leans closer to his screen.

"Looks like we got something," he says, and then adds a grudging 'sir' onto the end of his sentence. He's taken a deep dislike to Garner, and Quinn suspects that quite aside from the fact that he cheerfully subjects sick people to the risk of death, it's probably because he'd managed to upset Parker.

The stark green-white of night vision cameras show a man slipping into the lab, phone at his ear. His words are hazy, indistinct.

"What the hell is he saying?" snaps Garner. "Is it him?"

Hardison's fingers are already flying over the keyboard. It's not hard for him to hack the line, given that he'd cloned Clint's cell phone in preparation, but he always likes to make it look at least a little more difficult than it is. Quinn fights the urge to roll his eyes at the tech-speak pouring from his lips.

"If I can triangulate a couple satellites, bounce the cell-phone signal off your building's internal tower, then I might be able to reroute the call through an open line and --"

Quinn stops listening until Clint's voice emanates from the speakers, clear as day.

"-only need one more part of the formula," he's saying. "We still don't know how Garner managed to obtain it, but it looks like he hasn't worked out how to tweak it much."

Relief swims across Garner's face. He thinks that his cover is intact. That's important, for him to fall into the trap they're busy laying for him.

"Well, we'll need to find someone who can. Even Stark can't figure this out, and it's looking like trouble out there. The Captain might be able to deal with one of these guys, but by all accounts, there's more of them coming."

The conversation goes on, but one glance at Garner shows a calculated look in his eyes. He's thinking about all the rumours he's seen and heard -- rumours of super-soldiers that America can't quite fight of, not without some edge or advantage -- and he's calculating, as men like him always do. This afternoon, he'd been convinced that the game was up. Now, he's convinced that if he can just find the right angle, this is a game he can come out on top of.

"We need to neutralise him before he can hand over anything else, sir," Quinn says, and that's phrased very carefully. Garner agrees, absently, his mind on other things, but that's enough - he'd agreed. And so Quinn slips away, and makes his way, cat-like, through the dark corridors of the facility. He's got no need for stealth, given that Clint knows he's coming, but old habits die hard, and a little practice never goes awry.

He'd like to think that the strangled noise of surprise when he appears right behind Clint is genuine, but he can't quite tell. The man has more tucked away under his exterior than Quinn can quite discern.

Still in view of the camera - Hardison and Garner still looking on - lightning-quick hands grasp Clint's head, twist, break his neck and sever his spinal column with minimum fuss.

Or at least, that's what it looks like.

The cell phone, he grinds into the ground with his heel, and glances up to the camera.

In front of the screen, Hardison is faking something that's somewhere between moral disgust and nausea, one hand covering his mouth as he says things like 'oh, god, I am so not paid enough for this'. Garner stares, not exactly surprised, but recalculating. He knows enough to know that he's caught, now, that there's a dead body in his facility and his order to account for it. He licks his lips.

"Turn those cameras off," he says, "And get his ass back in my office. Quickly, unless you want to end up like our friend the mole."

When the light of the camera blinks out, Quinn reaches down and hauls Clint back to his feet. Clint squints into the darkness at the pieces of cellphone littering the ground.

"Aw," he says, "cellphone, no."

"I'll buy you another," Quinn says, wryly. "Nice acting."

"I've had a bunch of guys try to break my neck," he says, with a shrug of his shoulder. "I could extrapolate."

Quinn fixes him with narrowed eyes, amusement curling at the corner of his lips.

"I can't figure you out," he says, eventually. "Stick on that outfit of yours and wave a bow around, and you're a hero. But people don't recognise your face, and you insist on pretending that you're nothing special."

"My mom says I'm special," Clint says, with a half-grin, and Quinn rolls his eyes, but with a touch of good humour. "What about you? You spend your time hanging out with a kleptomaniac, a geek, and another guy who likes to hit things."

"Not usually. I'm doing them a favour."

"So what do you usually do?"

"Break people's necks."

"Ah," says Clint, without a single trace of fear or disgust or disapproval at the revelation. "I thought you'd had some practice."

* * *

 

By the time Quinn gets back to Garner’s office, the man is already deep in concerned thought – hands steepled together and brow low and gathered, like storm clouds fit to burst.

“There’s a dead man from a very dangerous agency lying on the floor of my lab,” he says, deceptively calm. Quinn can almost taste the panic hidden behind his words, and it’s second away.

“No there’s not, sir.”

Garner fixes him with a look, and Quinn returns it with the carefully blank look of a man paid to know nothing at all. He’s had a lot of practice with that particular look.

Garner pauses.

“Have you ever heard of SHIELD?” he doesn’t wait for an answer. The question is rhetorical, because in his own mind, Garner is a step above the rest of the world in being painfully aware of America’s most secret organisations. “They’ve tried getting what they want by infiltration. Once that fails, they’ll move straight on to the less subtle methods.”

The man is seething, but he’s smart enough to know that everyone in this room has just witnessed a man killed at his word. Much as he might hate it, he knows that it’s in his best interests to keep both Quinn and Hardison on his side, even if that means having to channel his anger elsewhere.

“It won’t even _help_ them!” Garner snaps, and Hardison flinches at the force with which his fist impacts on the table. Quinn’s gaze doesn’t flicker. He waits for the man to follow the path that they’ve carefully built for him. “If they want to make super-soldiers, they’re going to be disappointed. The serum is only one part of the formula, it won’t work.” He leans back in his chair, frustrated, and his next words are muttered, almost to himself.

“Just like them, too. Steal the solution, steal the glory.”

Hardison shakes his head emphatically.

“That’s the government for you, man. Bunch of goddamn thieves, always profitin’ from the sweat of honest men --”

He shuts up sharpish at the looks sent his way, from both Garner and Quinn in perfect unison.

“Sir,” Quinn says, flatly. “It’s not my place, but if you can make that serum useful, then you can claim the credit. Publicly, if you like, so that there’s no chance for them to steal it from you.”

Garner shoots him a shrewd look. Quinn has always preferred the more direct approach to convincing a person, but he can practically hear Hardison’s mental facepalm. He can definitely hear Eliot in his ear telling him to _stop pushing him, man, you’ll scare him off._

“And why do you think I would want to do that?”

“There’s been rumours going around about this company,” Quinn says, and he doesn’t have to specify. Garner must be aware of the whispers, of the men and women for whom the serum has been something rather less than effective. “As long as I’m being paid to ensure the safety and security of this company, that includes its reputation.”

“Delightfully mercenary, aren’t you?”

They’re teetering on the edge here. Quinn can feel it in Garner’s narrowed eyes and the tension across Hardison’s shoulders. He doesn’t waver. Garner probably knows every trick in the book, with the training he’s had, so Quinn’s not going to bother using one.

“And bluntly honest,” he agrees. “Mr. Garner, your facility is one of the best I’ve ever seen in terms of security, and I’ve seen what your product can achieve. Your company has the potential to be massive, and it’s in my interests to help it along in the hope that you’ll keep cutting me a paycheck.”

The threat’s not articulated, as such, nor even really suggested, but it’s there, lingering between the lines. There are two people in the world excluding Garner who know exactly what’s going on at the Gilgamesh Corporation, and they could tear everything down with a word if they so chose. It’s all in Garner’s hands, and his eyes skitter from Hardison, to Quinn, and back again.

“Only one problem,” Garner says, and Hardison breathes an almost audible sigh of relief as Garner finally takes the bait. “There’s no way to make that serum useful for them. The best scientists in the world have worked on it, but the only people who really understood it – those who made it – are long dead.”

Maria had filled them in on that, too – on the man who’d used Extremis to create soldiers of his own, who’d almost succeeded in killing the President. She’d also pointed out that Tony Stark could have reconstructed the Extremis formula over lunch, if he’d wanted to, but that he’d insisted it never be weaponised again. SHIELD retained what was left of the formula only to study possible medical applications.

“With respect,” Quinn says with a hint of a smile. “Not _all_ the best scientists.”

* * *

 

Parker’s drowning in loose scruffy clothes, and she’s purloined a pair of Hardison’s thick-framed glasses which seem to make her eyes far too big for her face. She’s also muttering a constant stream of number’s under her breath which, if Garner bothered to listen to, he might recognise as the dimensions of his office safe, along with its combination.

“You’re telling me that _this_ girl can do what SHIELD’s scientists couldn’t?” Garner seems thoroughly unconvinced. Parker ignores him.

“She’s got an unparalleled IQ,” Quinn says. Parker has moved on from Garner’s safe to what Quinn suspects are his own measurements – collar, chest, waist, inside leg. He feels inexplicably violated, and shifts from foot to foot. “The neural pathways in her brain are wired almost solely to deal with complex problem-solving. She can barely dress herself, but she proved the ‘abc conjecture’ at age nine, and had to invent a new mathematical language to do it.”

Garner eyes her doubtfully, but after a long moment, he slides a folder and a vial across the table. Quinn directs Parker towards it, and after a moment, she flips it open.

“Di-basic amylase derivative with fat-soluble complex lipids, three stage breakdown into component parts,” she recites in a flat monotone, and goes on to list the components and their effect on the human system. In her ear, Hardison’s prompting her using the information she herself had stolen from the safe. Garner’s eyebrows creep steadily upwards the more she talks, and opens his mouth to ask her something – then thinks better of it.

“How long will it take her?” he asks Quinn.

“Three hours? Four? You should certainly be able to run a trial before the morning.”

“A trial,” Garner says, and there’s a considering look on his face. Quinn knows why – if Garner wants to test the serum secretly without putting himself at risk, Quinn is probably his only option now that Hardison has been sent away, with the promise of adequate compensation to keep his mouth shut. “Keep an eye on her, will you? Put her in the small lab. I’m not releasing the main lab to her until I know this is going to work.”

Quinn ushers Parker out of the door, and when Hardison confirms that he’s looped the security footage to show them in the small lab – Quinn sitting with his feet on a table and Parker bent over some instrument or other – they break into a jog.

They’ve got preparations to make.

* * *

 

Fighting with Eliot is familiar, even if this time there's less competition about it.

Less smugness, too; the last time Quinn had landed punch after punch below Spencer's ribcage, he'd been convinced that he was more than capable of taking down the infamous hitter. Right up until he'd come to, bloodied and bruised and with the headache from hell, on the cold floor of the hangar. 

This time, though, they're only sparring, warming themselves up, and it's a back-and-forth that's so quick, it's almost difficult to follow. Punches are half-landed, flurries of fists block and attack and feint. Feet dance around each other, and each man has a look of deep concentration on his face - though Quinn's is tempered by a curling smile. Blows are traded almost equally, the upper hand never quite staying with either hitter for long.

Clint watches with something like disgruntled awe. He'd thought that fighting this precise, this complex and this jaw-droppingly threatening was restricted to Natasha, and Steve. He'd easily believe that both the hitters had been dosed with some kind of super serum. Especially, he thought, if either of them were bothering to actually land their blows, rather than to pull them short at the last minute to keep from beating each other to a pulp.

"You're creepy," Clint says, when they both drop their fists without seeming to actually communicate, and Quinn wanders over with only a touch of breathlessness on him.

"Don't act like you're not just as dangerous," Quinn says, with amusement licking at his words. He'd watched Clint, watched Maria, watched the way that Clint pretended to cover up his own deadly nature with a goofball exterior that - to be fair - probably wasn't entirely faked. "I've been told that I'd stand no chance against your bow."

Clint shrugs, grins.

"I dunno. I kind of like you, so my aim might be a bit wide. Besides, I'm pretty convinced you could dodge a speeding arrow."

"I've never tried," Quinn says, dryly. "And funnily enough, I'm not all that keen to."

"Hard to dodge an exploding arrow anyway," Clint jokes, and Quinn raises an eyebrow, the smile on his face almost hidden. Most people struggle to read him, but Clint seems to manage just fine - like Eliot, who can pretty much read a whole conversation from the other hitter's face.

"And you think I'm creepy?"

"You kill people for a living."

"And you do what? Entertain them with interesting bow-and-arrow related tricks?"

Clint concedes the point with a shrug of his shoulder and another wide grin, paired with a wink that has Quinn tilting his head, a little bemused by the archer.

"I'll tell you some stories about the circus some time."

Before Quinn can even express his mild confusion, Hardison appears. He's carrying a box that's stacked with filming equipment, and Quinn can tell that he's probably not going to enjoy this next bit.

* * *

 

"It looks good," Clint says, peering over Quinn's shoulder at the grainy security footage that Hardison's playing on screen. Quinn, who's still trying to peel the little motion-capture markers from his skin, doesn't voice any agreement.

But it does look good. It hadn't been so hard, choreographing a fight between himself and Clint and Eliot. Nor had it been so hard for Eliot to fight that fight slightly slower than he usually would have, muscles straining to maintain that smooth control. Quinn, covered in tracking markers, had played his part, and twenty minutes later, Hardison had presented them with footage of a glowing-eyed Quinn moving faster than any human should be able to, landing far more powerful blows than even either of the trained hitters was able. 

All fake, but very convincingly so, and Hardison would be able to replace the security feed with his pre-recorded footage at the appropriate time.

"You, on the other hand," Clint says with a grin and reaches up to pluck a tracker from Quinn's cheekbone, "look ridiculous."

Quinn's hand smacks the archer upside the head before he can even think about moving out of range, but Clint's snicker makes it clear that there wasn't much force behind it.

"You're even worse than the hackers," he grumbles, and Eliot sends a narrow-eyed glance from Quinn to Clint and back again, but keeps his mouth shut. Quinn, suddenly self-conscious of something but not quite sure what, pretends not to notice, and peels away from the small group to find a mirror, and divest himself of the last of these damned markers.

Clint, either oblivious to Eliot's look or unashamed of its implications, trails after him, plucking markers from Quinn's suit as he goes.

* * *

 

When Quinn returns with Parker, clutching a test-tube full of a viscous, yellow-ish liquid, Garner's smile is almost wolf-like. Quinn imagines that after all this time spent behind the scenes, dreaming of being one of the heroes he's spent so much time providing support for, the imagined victory tastes of nothing less than ambrosia.

"She's done it?"

Quinn nods, curtly.

"I don't pretend to understand the science, sir, but if she claims that she's done it, then I trust her. I once watched her create a compound which neutralised a chemical bomb and save my life."

Parker, who seems to be having slightly too much fun pretending to be a socially impossible genius, blinks rapidly and stares somewhere distinctly left of Quinn's face with a shy sort of smile on her face. Quinn touches her shoulder, gently, as a man does who's equal parts scared and awed by something. Garner nods.

"Well, you'd better hope she's as right as she thinks she is, because we need to test this baby." 

Quinn pretends not to understand. It's vital, Eliot had pointed out, that the mark makes his own decisions. If he feels like he's being pushed into anything, he'll push back out of instinct.

"Sir?"

"Well, I can't hand it over without being sure that it's going to do what SHIELD needs it to do. There's a possibility that I may need... leverage, later, if certain truths come to light." They all know that he means that if SHIELD find out who he is, he needs a reason for them not to arrest him on the spot. Once again, they pretend not to. "I don't have time for a full clinical trial, of course, but one man ought to do. And you, Boyd, are that man."

Quinn pretends to hesitate, and idly decides that all this pretending is far too tiring for him. There's so much more effort to put into a con than into simply shooting a man in the head.

"Sir," he says, which is neither an agreement nor a refusal, and shifts from foot to foot.

"It's safe," Parker says. "I did the math twice. The compound will increase muscle efficiency by nineteen-point-eight-four percent, encourage the intake of oxygen into blood cells to allow higher levels of respiration and therefore output, will speed up cell regeneration and repair, and allow neural pathways to be travelled up to five time more quickly. As a result, the body will seem stronger, faster, and be able to take more damage."

It's delivered in an awkward, stilted monotone, and Quinn has to give it to the thief - she's certainly learned how to play a part.

"See?" Garner says. "You'll be fine. Your pet genius says so."

Quinn relents, and just like that, the final part of their plan falls into place.

* * *

 

If he'd felt ridiculous with tracking markers stuck all over his face and clothes, it's nothing to how he feels on a bed with Parker sliding a hypodermic under his skin and Garner looking on greedily. It's a struggle not to roll his eyes as he watched Parker push the plunger, and he makes a mental note to double check exactly what Hardison's 'harmless' solution consists of, later.

He remembers the last time that he was strapped to a bed with a needle at the crook of his elbow. Handcuffed to the bed would be more accurate, trapped in the confines of a grimy Ukranian hospital, half-mad with pain from where a man had tried to gut him, an ugly wound from his sternum to his navel that now is nothing more than a knotted, ropy scar. The day he'd decided he'd make himself deadly, the day that he decided no one would ever take him so easily again.

He shudders a little at the thought of it, and remembers that he's supposed to be putting on a show; his spine bends arches off the sterile white sheets and slams back down again, his fingers clawing at the empty air as his eyes roll back in his head.

It's not hard to act. He's been here before, with his blood on fire and the drugs not quite strong enough to blunt the knife-sharp pain. He remembers, and he lets his body remember, too.

When he settles, Garner has taken two or three terrified steps backwards, while Parker looks on impassively. Behind them, a light begins to blink, and an insistent alarm tone begins to sound.

Garner whips around. On the security feed, two men are making their way through the darkness, their sure, quick steps marking them out as the professionals they clearly are. Every corner is cleared with the guns held ready, and their faces are covered by SWAT helmets with integrated communications arrays, in case they get separated or are required to call for back-up.

Garner swears. Quinn opens his eyes, swings his feet off the edge of the bed.

“I’ve got them,” he says, and stumbles a little as he stands, arms thrown wide for balance.

Garner starts at the words, stares at Quinn – who looks just like he did five minutes ago, if a little unsteadier on his feet.

“How does it feel?”

“Like I’m drunk,” Quinn retorts, dryly, “but even drunk, I can take on these goons.”

He takes a step towards the door, then another, then another; before he’s at the end of the corridor, he’s running.

 _“Aaaand – action,”_ Hardison says in his ear, and he ceases his sprint down the corridors. Garner will have a front-seat view of Hardison’s efforts playing across his screen – Quinn running a little faster and a little faster until he blurs slightly on the grainy security footage, barrelling into one of the men (Clint) fast enough to send him flying into a wall and crumple against the floor. The second (Eliot), he’ll take down in a flurry of hits too hard and too fast to do anything much against, the (fake) gun barrel snapped in half when it’s swung in his direction.

A cinematic masterpiece by any standards, but Quinn feels cheated. He’s itching to hit something, to solve this entire mess the old-fashioned way. Pretending to beat up Eliot and Clint just hasn’t given him the same satisfaction as shooting a guy in the face, and all his pent-up adrenaline just keeps building, with nowhere to go. Next time, he tells himself, he’ll only help Spencer if he can guarantee that he’ll be putting his skills to use – not play-acting.

In the office, Garner watches with increasing glee as events play out, and he throws an arm around Parker’s shoulders as, on-screen, Quinn stares at his hands as if seeing them for the first time. She squirms away from the contact awkwardly, and her desire to be free of his touch is only half acting.

“How much are they paying you at that security firm, kid?” he asks, and drags her towards the door, ready to give her access to the lab and every drop of serum that he can spare. “Whatever the number is, double it. You’re working for me now. How long to convert all the serum I have in the lab?”

“With more equipment, perhaps six hours,” Parker says, and squirms some more. Finding herself unable to escape his grip, she gives up. “The process can be staggered for several batches, and extrapolating from my initial --”

“Sure, whatever,” Garner says, cellphone already in his hand. “Six hours. I got a phone call to make.”

* * *

 

Quinn is by Garner’s shoulder when they exit the facility.

The employees of Gilgamesh had turned up in the morning to find the doors barred to them. Signs posted in the entrances had informed them that they were being given one week’s holiday while the lab was used for an outside contract. Most of them – wanting more answers than a sheet of paper could give – are still hanging round in small knots, conversation flowing back and forth between them in low, worried tones as the rumour mill grinds.

Most of the crowd, however, is press. Right at the front is Trish, the lady who’d come to them in the first place. Garner doesn’t even cast a second glance at her, but Quinn’s fairly sure that he wouldn’t recognise her even if he did. Somehow, that just makes this revenge even more satisfying; Garner has led himself here, to this point, with his arrogance.

As soon as he appears, his face bright and smiling despite the lack of sleep over the past twenty-four hours, cameras begin to flash, and questions are shouted in an indecipherable cacophony of sound. He holds his hands up for silence, and it falls quickly.

“You’ve all been invited here to share in the consequences of my hard work at Gilgamesh,” Garner says, false modesty plastered to his words. “I’ve worked hard here, and as the sole driving force behind this company, I --”

He’s interrupted by a journalist before he can finish.

“You seem proud of what you’ve done here,” she says, microphone outstretched.

“Of course I am,” he says, spreading his hands. “This morning you all received a report of what I’ve achieved here, and I think it’s important that we celebrate --”

His words are drowned out in cries of outrage, in shouting and more questions, the demands of the pack of journalists rising to a hubbub.

“What the hell is going on here?” Garner asks, turning to his super-soldier, to the man he’s come to rely on in the past day, the man who’d killed on his word and who was living proof of his achievement – and finds him gone. He’s suddenly very, very alone.

“So you claim responsibility for the thirteen deaths recorded because of your ‘miracle cure’?” demands a man from the crowd, and Garner’s face is a sudden rictus of terror as the tone of the crowd becomes comprehensible.

“I don’t – that’s not what – I’m a good guy! I’m _saving_ this country, I’m a _hero_ \--”

His protests are pretty much drowned out by the crowd. There’s a grim smile on Trish’s face, and the headlines are writing themselves the more that Garner protests.

_Pharmaceutical Boss ‘Celebrates’ Deaths of Thirteen People!_

Garner stumbles backwards from the wave of vitriol flooding his way, fumbles with his access card until he’s into the building, sweat beading on his forehead and gathering at the nape of his neck. He’s bewildered and confused and somehow, the press have got a hold of the records of those people for whom the serum had been too much for their systems to handle, and somehow he’d _admitted_ to being responsible and –

“ – Garner. Or should I say Agent Waters?”

If Garner thought that the day could throw no more unpleasant surprises at him, the voice of Maria Hill is proof otherwise.

When he turns, it’s with a fist swinging, and Quinn has never been so glad to have an excuse to punch a man in the throat so hard that his eyes bulge and he might never breathe quite right again. It’s not quite the full-on fight that he’s itching for, but at least it takes the edge off.

As the man clutches at his throat, his brows gather at the sight of the small crowd looming over him.

His security consultant. His security consultant’s tech expert, and scientist. The mole that had been _killed_ , but who’s grinning like it’s Christmas. Maria Hill, and another long-haired man he doesn’t quite recognise. He doesn’t understand, not yet, but he’ll have plenty of time to think it over in SHIELD’s custody.

“Nice to see you again,” Maria says, amicably. “Should have run further.”

* * *

 

Quinn refuses Eliot’s offer to stay a while longer.

This isn’t him. He doesn’t help people, not unless they’re paying him, and he likes the simplicity of his own work. Spencer and his makeshift team are good, but there’s no room for Quinn there. He can’t leave behind what Eliot left behind, and he’s got no wish to.

He’s good at what he does, and there’s no shame in it. Intercepting press packages and faking super-serums is far too much work for his gains.

He doesn’t even go with them to see Trish. People aren’t so much his thing, and the knowledge that he’s done what he was asked is, for him, enough. Garner’s in custody, and SHIELD are in control of what’s left of the Extremis serum. It would have been quicker to shoot the man, but he supposes that there’s some karmic justice in doing it this way.

He walks back to this month’s box-like apartment, rented with cash and anonymous in its squalor. It’s only when he reaches the door that he pauses, keys not even yet in his hand.

“You following me under orders, or because it’s your idea of a good time?” he asks the empty corridor behind him, and there’s a moment of silence before Clint slips around the corner, grinning shamelessly.

“Curiosity, mostly.”

Quinn narrows his eyes, hands still in his pockets, and leans against his door. He stares, thoughtfully.

“You pretend to be this harmless idiot,” he says. “But you’re dangerous.”

“I don’t like people to expect too much from me. Besides, I’m definitely an idiot.”

They both know that Maria Hill would never put up with anything so tiresome as an idiot, for all the idiotic things Clint might come out with in any given conversation.

“You are if you expected me not to notice you.”

“What do you expect? I’m not a spy. I’m a guy with a bow and arrow who blows stuff up. I lack subtlety in many things.”

“That so?”

“Yeah. Can I come in?”

Quinn snorts a laugh, pushes himself away from the door and fishes a key from the pocket of his suit, jamming it in the door and shouldering the door in a well-practiced move that has it popping out of its slightly damp-warped frame.

“That your lack of subtlety speaking?”

“Sure. What’s your other name? You can’t be just Quinn.”

“I’m just Quinn,” Quinn assures the archer dryly as the man brushes past him into the mostly-empty apartment, only furniture and suits and last night’s pizza to show that anyone even lives here. Clint makes himself at home, sprawling across the couch with a certain lack of grace that’s somehow endearing rather than inelegant.

“Maybe I’ll just call you Boyd.”

“Only if you want me to _actually_ break your neck.”

“I dunno. It was kind of hot. Y’got any beer?”

Quinn can’t help but laugh, a little off-balance at Clint’s uncaring bluntness. Quinn doesn’t have friends, unless you count Eliot, and he certainly doesn’t have anything more. Most people tend to shy away from hands that have done what his do every day, but Clint doesn’t seem to _care._

He fetches two bottles from the fridge, opens them on the side of the counter with a certain inventive finesse, and then settles himself on the couch next to Clint.

“If I give you this, are you going to keep turning up, like some stray dog?”

“Depends if you want me to.”

“I could do worse than you on my couch,” Quinn says, which is as close as he’ll get to admitting that he _likes_ Clint, and his easy, lop-sided grin and his off-beat, irreverent humour.

“Woof,” Clint says, solemnly, and plucks a bottle from Quinn’s hand. “To a job well done.”

Quinn shakes his head, but clinks his bottle against Clint’s anyway.

“You’re an idiot.”

“Told you so.”

That earns him an eye-roll, and Quinn takes a long mouthful of beer, and tries to remember when he last slept.

Too long ago, he thinks, but for now he’ll drink, and laugh at Clint’s stupid jokes, and try to forget about the exhaustion tickling the base of his skull. Maybe later he’ll sleep, but all of a sudden the cold beer and the warm laughter and the heat of Clint’s knee against his own feels more important.

Things he’d forgotten, along the way.

It’s nice to have them back, he thinks, and realises he might have said it out loud when Clint shoots him a questioning look. He shakes his head with a curling, wry smile, and takes another mouthful of beer. He’s not sure why, quite yet, but Clint leaves him feeling a little more alive than he’s done in years, though he hadn’t noticed until now.

Even a man who kills people needs some life in his veins.

“Barton?” he says, after a contemplative moment.

“Mm?”

“If you tell Spencer, I’ll kill you so imaginatively it’ll take you a while to notice that you’re dead.”

“Sounds like a fair deal.”

 


End file.
